So, here's an overview of some of the things I did during the Nature of the Village open space:

• bird language sits (I now know what a wren tit and a stellar jay sound like, but more importantly I understand that songbirds are either content (referred to as baseline) or alarmed, that they only sing when content, and they use more simple chirping for both other contented activities and alarms, that it's the intensity of those more simple chirps to listen for that will tell you if they are alarming. Oh, and that's all important because bird alarms can be used while hunting both to let you know what other animals are in the area, and conversely, whether or not those animals know that you are in the area or not. Songbirds are the security systems of nature. You've got to be careful, or you'll trip the alarm and every deer or rabbit or whoever will immediately sprint away.)
  
• We slaughtered a sheep, which provided the meat for most of our dinners for the week. I witnessed the kill, and I helped in the skinning and quartering parts of the processing (I also helped render fat). So strange to have eaten meat for 20 years and to have this be the first time I've directly witnessed the death of the animal that goes to feed me. I look forward to taking an even more direct role as time goes on.
• I made progress on the carving of my first bow. It'll be shootable in the next couple days, hopefully.
• I picked and ate a lot of evergreen huckleberries for pemmican making (they're everywhere at Cedar Grove!), with the occasional salal berry found and thrown in for good measure.
• I assembled a bow drill fire kit and got sore trying to start a fire. I think I'll get it down pretty quick as I find more refined materials. I need a wider drill and a smoother bow (I'll probably just carve down the one I have). I also need to find the best position for my gangly self to hold the drill steady so it won't wobble and so I can put as much pressure as is necessary to get that coveted black smoking powder (if the powder is grey or brown, it's not enough pressure)
• I learned the very basics of flintknapping- stone breaks at a 45 degree angle from the direction of impact. also, you need to strike on a face of the stone angled towards you- it doesn't take much force, just the right angles. Also, obsidian shards are really really sharp, the dust from knapping can give you silicosis, and improper technique can give you tendonitis and/or carpal tunnel.
• We looked at some tracks and scat- deer, fox, elk, bobcat, and bear
• Went out on the umiak, and paddled a kayak for the first time, both of the skin on wood frame design.
• played bamboo swordthrowing games, and spolin games - very good medicine for me. both work on building one-mindedness and sensory awareness. cut the pauses, and magic happens in the space between you and the people around you.
• harvested mussels from the beach; played giddily in the freezing cold surf of the pacific ocean
• ate and helped cook amazing delicious meals. 
• ate ripe figs right off the tree (yet another first; certainly not the last first . . .)

Also, our group will be keeping a blog where we will be documenting what we are doing. I might end up cross posting either from there to here or vice versa. The name we chose for our group is Earth Ninjas.

I got back saturday from the first week of the TrackersTEAMS adult immersion program, during which we travelled to Cedar Grove Farm, a working permaculture homestead (with lots of goats and chickens and fruit trees, tons of huckleberries, a big garden, and thousands of disease-resistant cedars that have been planted out) just outside the small town of Port Orford on the southern Oregon coast. 

We camped for 6 nights there during our Nature of the Village open space. 

Open space gatherings (I'm using Mythic Cartography as a reference here) are based on four principles-

• Whoever comes are the right people, 
  
• Whatever happens is the only thing that could have, 
  
• When it starts, it starts, and 
  
• When it ends, it ends
  

and one law, the Law of Two Feet-

• If you are neither learning nor contributing where you're at, use your two feet to move somewhere that you can
  

and an assortment of understandings-

• be prepared to be surprised
  
• open space needs passion and responsibility to work
  

The law of two feet leads to a couple phenomena, labeled butterflies and bumblebees- different styles of participation in the gathering beyond the standard of active and steady- butterflies can just sit and observe intently, and bumblebees may bounce around from one group to another, pollinating along the way.

Basically, there's a big board set up in a central location with time slots and locations delineated, and anyone at the gathering can plant the seed of intent for an activity or a workshop or a discussion, whatever. So there's all sorts of things going on during each time period, and you have to choose. It's beautiful and chaotic, but also not very coherent.

And that's where another piece of the puzzle comes in- agile retrospectives. The agile retrospective is a social technology that aims to allow a group of people to work together as efficiently as possible. At regularly scheduled meetings, you evaluate how things have gone so far and what needs to change/happen next. The model we followed this week was using sticky notes to contribute on a board, optionally announcing what the notes say verbally, first just observations, then feelings, and finally needs or next actions. Then, all of the needs are read by the facilitator and each one is asked to have a volunteer (who feels passion and responsibility for it) take on making sure the next step towards fulfilling that need is taken. We did slightly different variations on this theme three times each day. 

I enjoyed the open space format because I got to tailor each moment to what I wanted to do, but it became exhausting by mid-week as I didn't make taking down-time (and thereby missing something) a priority. For me, I think it would work best for just two consecutive days. Maybe three. Seven was a bit much. 

And the retrospectives are going to grow into an amazing tool. It's still very unfamiliar territory to me, being constantly asked how I'm feeling and what I need, so I'm glad that we'll continue with this model throughout the program. 

As Tony (our facilitator) reminded us all week, all models are wrong, but some are useful.

Oh! One more thing. A quote from a zine by Ran that has put the weight of my fear of failure into a new perspective:

Cynics say that people like me are foolish idealists, because we're fighting according to our values and not according to what seems possible. But these cynics are the real idealists, so fixated on the ideal of "success" that they become paralyzed, unable to act without the appearance of likely success. And anyone who controls the appearance of what is possible and what is impossible controls these people utterly. That's how a lion "tamer" is able to abuse and humiliate an animal that could kill him in seconds, by giving it the illusion that it can't win. And people who have been given the illusion that they are powerless in what they really care about, like the lion, become depressed and lethargic, and stop caring, and just go through the motions waiting to die.

In our culture this is called "growing up," and these mature and sensible people are always telling us that we're "wasting" this or that because we can't succeed. Even if we can't, what's more of waste, a trapped animal that fights to the death, or one that dies without a fight?

I'm totally tamed right now. But I think I'm finding my way to the cage's door.

Holy shit, I live in a different city now.

Over 2000 miles away from all of my family and most of my friends. (Did you know that Google maps now offers walking directions? It's pretty humorous to scan through, especially the strings of nameless left and right turns. It looks like if I walked 24/7, it would only take 30 days and 21 hours to get home. . .)

I miss 'em. Quite a bit. I'd be missing 'em a heck of a lot more if it weren't for my brain-cancer causing cell phone. Maintaining connection over vast distance. Despite vast distance. While simultaneously figuring out how to become evermore present in what's going on right here. It seems to be a funny dance I'm doing now, a balancing act, on my toes, on the run. I'm very busy these days, and it's all interesting.

What's the plan? Become a competent human in nine months time, take what I've gathered back home and share the love? How nomadic of me.

In a big way, I'm moving directly towards everything I want for myself and for everyone around me, but in another way, I left everything I want behind. Cut myself off and away. Transplanted. Putting down roots here now, but not too deep! In limbo.

Or maybe I'm just akimbo, an elbow temporarily jutting out away from the body of my family. On a walkabout. A rite of passage. A coming into my own.


Whatever, I'm excited.

I'm amazed and so grateful to my family for making this adventure possible to me. I definitely recognize how blessed I am to not have to take a job to pay my way through this. I can give it the kind of focus that I used to give high school, but even more so, because this is not compulsory. Or, more aptly, it's less like high school and more like the immersive learning that children in indigenous cultures experience(d).

Actually, that leads in to the literal rejuvenation I am intentionally trying to cultivate- behaving more as a child, shedding the rigid seriousness of civilized adulthood in favor of light-hearted curiosity, playfulness, joy. I want to be adaptable- flexible, again. My current rattail hairdo harks back to my seven year old self for inspiration (I had a rattail in first grade as well). Now I like it when people call me Thomas, for the same reason.

I suppose it seems kind of contradictory to be rejuvenating and rite-of-passaging at the same time. I guess I need to move backward before I can move forward. If I must move linearly at all, that is.

Tis late. My sheepskins beckon.